CHAP. VIII. ] THE FOUR TH DA Y. 133 



I might say more of this, but it might be thought curiosity or 

 worse, and shall therefore forbear it ; and take up so much of 

 your attention as to tell you that the best of Pikes are noted to be 

 in rivers ; next, those in great ponds or meres ; and the worst, in 

 small ponds. 



But before I proceed further, I am to tell you, that there is a 

 great antipathy betwixt the Pike and some frogs : and this may 

 appear to the reader of Dubravius, a bishop in Bohemia,* who, 

 in his book " Of Fish and Fish-ponds," relates what he says he 

 saw with his own eyes, and could not forbear to tell the reader. 

 Which was : — 



" As he and the Bishop Thurzo were walking by a large pond 

 in Bohemia, they saw a frog, when the Pike lay very sleepily and 

 quiet by the shore-side, leap upon his head ; and the frog having 

 expressed malice or anger by his swoln cheeks and staring eyes, 

 did stretch out his legs and embrace the Pike's head, and presently 

 reached them to his eyes, tearing with them and his teeth, those 

 tender parts : the Pike, moved with anguish, moves up and down 

 the water, and rubs himself against weeds, and whatever he 

 thought might quit him of his enemy; but all in vain, for the frog 

 did continue to ride triumphantly, and to bite and torment the 

 Pike till his strength failed ; and then the frog sunk with the Pike 



copulation : and as in all other creatures, so in this the female seemeth to shun and Bis 

 from the male, so that you shall see three, foure, or five male fish chase one femalet and 

 so hold her in on every side, that they will force her to swimme through weedes, grasse, 

 rushes, straw, or any suchlike thing that is in the pond, wherein she being entangled 

 and wearied with their chasing, they find opportunitie to joyne in copulation with her, 

 mingling their milt with her spawne, sometime one of them, sometime another, at which 

 time the spawne falleth from her like little egges, and sticketh fast to th.e sayd wee'des : 

 some eight, nine, or ten dayes after which time it quickneth, taketh life, and hath the 

 proportion of a fish : yea two or three days before it quicken, if you take such an egge 

 and breake it uppon your naile, you shall perceive the proportion of a fish therein. After 

 it is quicke it mooveth very little for some fortnight or three weeks, and then it gathereth 

 together into sculles by the shore-side, where the water is shallow : howbeit the Tench 

 frie will lie scattering in the weedes, and not flote in sculles." — Taverner, Ceriaine 

 Experitnents concerning Fish ^ 1600, 4to, p. 18. 



* Janus Dubravius Scala, Bishop of Olmutz in Moravia in the sixteenth century, was 

 born at Pilsen in Bohemia. The duties of the bishopric did not hinder him from being 

 an ambassador into Sicily, then into Bohemia, and President of the chamber established 

 to proceed against the rebels who had borne a part in the troubles of Smalcald. Besides 

 the above book (the Latin title whereof is, De Piscinis, &' Piscium. qui in els aluntur 

 ftaturis), he appears, by the Bodleian Catalogue, to have written, in Latin, a History of 

 Bohemia: and an oration to Sigismund King of Poland, exhorting him to make war on 

 the Turks. He seems to have practised the ordering of fish-ponds and the breeding of 

 fish, both for delight and profit. Hoffman, who in his Lexicon has given his name a 

 place, says, he died with the reputation of a pious and learned prelate, in 1553 ; which 

 last particular may admit of question, for, if it be true, it makes all his writings post- 

 humous publications, the earliest whereof bears date anno 1559. 



His book On Fish and Fish-ponds^ in which are many pleasant relations, was in 1599 

 translated into English, and published in 410 by George Churchey, Fellow of Lion's Inn, 

 with the title of ^ neiv Book 0/ good Husbandry, very pleasant and of great profit, both 

 for gentlemen and yeomen^ containing the order and manner of making offisk-poftdsj 

 &c.—'S.. 



